


151. breathing

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [338]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 10:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11079786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Why’re you awake,” Sarah says.“I don’t know,” Helena says.





	151. breathing

Helena wakes up and Sarah is still there. She sleeps curled up on her side in the bed like a bug, or like she’s trying to keep her soft parts from being hurt. She doesn’t twitch in her sleep. Her back is to Helena, and Helena rolls over to watch it keep on not twitching.

She doesn’t know what time it is. Early enough that the sun hasn’t risen, early enough that the birds are silent. She doesn’t even know what woke her – not dreams, not sounds. She was asleep and then she wasn’t. That simple.

She wonders what Sarah dreams about.

They’re breathing the same. They’ve been breathing the same for hours; it happened by accident, before Helena fell asleep, and now it’s still happening. Helena breathes in and Sarah breathes out and they go on like this, on and on and

Sarah gasps, startles, and is awake. So that’s probably why Helena woke up: so that someone would be awake, and could shift a little in the bed to avoid startling Sarah, and say: “Shh.”

Sarah clumsily rolls over so she’s facing Helena. “What time’sit,” she says, eyes half-lidded.

“I don’t know.”

“Mnuh.” Sarah’s eyes open, slowly, and then slam shut again. Her breathing has slipped back into Helena’s breathing, like they’re one set of lungs that got split in two. “Why’re you awake.”

“I don’t know.”

Sarah lets out a breath that might be a laugh. “You tired too, huh.”

Helena thinks about it. She isn’t, really. She doesn’t need much sleep. “Yes,” she says.

Sarah’s eyes slowly open and she reaches over, pushes Helena’s hair out of her face before her sleep-clumsy hand drops down to the mattress. “Bet your nightmares are shit, yeah?” she says.

“Yes,” Helena says, and this time it’s true. “My dreams are very shit.”

“Mine too,” Sarah whispers, like it’s a secret – and it probably is, Helena probably isn’t supposed to tell anyone. Sarah, from what Helena has seen of her, doesn’t want anyone to know that she is capable of being hurt. She sleeps curled in on her side, so all you can see are her strong bones. Her heart? Gone, at the center of her sleep-self. Only the bones, and whatever you could dream about that isn’t nightmares.

“ _Sestra_ Alison says count sheep,” Helena says dutifully, even though she has tried this and mostly it just makes the nightmares worse. Baa.

“When’d she say that,” Sarah says, all the words blurring together.

(The living room, a little after dawn. Helena on the couch. Alison charging into the kitchen, fully dressed, already humming with her own electricity. _Oh! You’re awake_.

Helena had opened her mouth to say _I dreamed about_ and then had closed it again. _I woke up_ , she’d said, uselessly. The air between them buzzed with the potential for Helena to talk about her dreams, and both of their shoulders went stiff, and Helena did not talk about her dreams.)

“She wanted to help,” Helena says.

“Doesn’t help,” Sarah tells the pillow, lips smashed up against the pillowcase.

“I know,” Helena says.

“Doesn’t help,” Sarah says again, and reaches out her hand and grabs onto the fabric of Helena’s shirt. “Don’t go,” she says, like Helena would leave her, like Sarah is the one who would wake up and expect her sister to be gone.

“I won’t,” Helena says. “I will come into your dreams with you. I will fight the bad things there.”

“Mm,” Sarah says, eyelashes fluttering, eyes not opening. She breathes in and Helena breathes out and they keep going in silence. Helena’s eyes are itching but she keeps them open, just in case she can see the doorway into Sarah’s dreams.

She thinks Sarah is asleep again. She could say Sarah’s name, to see, but if it woke Sarah up Helena would never forgive herself. She keeps her eyes open until her eyes aren’t open anymore. She is awake until she isn’t anymore – until she is dreaming, and Helena and her sister are in the dark. Around the walls that Helena can feel – can’t see, but can feel – things are moving in the dark. They are all very sharp.

_You came_ , Sarah says.

_I promised_ , Helena says, and draws her knife. In this dream she has a knife, and she draws it, and it is going to be enough.

With her other hand she reaches out and takes Sarah’s hand. They walk forward into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
